World Food Prices Jump to Record on Sugar, Oilseeds

World Food Prices Jump to Record on Sugar, Oilseeds

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- World food prices rose to a record in December on higher sugar, grain and oilseed costs, the United Nations said, exceeding levels reached in 2008 that sparked deadly riots from Haiti to Egypt. An index of 55 food commodities tracked by the Food and Agriculture Organization gained for a sixth month to 214.7 points, above the previous all-time high of 213.5 in June 2008, the Rome-based UN agency said in a monthly report. The gauges for sugar and meat prices advanced to records. Sugar climbed for a third year in a row in 2010, and corn jumped the most in four years in Chicago. Food prices may rise more unless the world grain crop increases “significantly” in 2011, the FAO said Nov. 17. At least 13 people died last year in Mozambique in protests against plans to lift bread prices.

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Here we go again! As if it wasn't already hard enough to get by day to day for millions of people all over the world their bottom line just shrunk a little more. I really feel for the people that have no room in their budgets to make up for the increasing prices of food that is far from peaked. How long before we have food riots in the states because welfare and social security no longer cover the cost of general food stocks to feed their recipients? How many more starving people will this add to this ever growing list of already displaced and unemployed/under employed people? The effects of growing food prices reach to the core of everything because one has to eat, but one doesn't have to make their car or house payment. Will this be the trigger of the second leg down of the economic collapse? Thoughts?

Well, this is all just synthetic shortages and nonsense to overinflate the commodities prices...but I will say that food for now is actually really cheap if you compare it to 100 years ago (in regards to purchasing power).

We can have meat every night of the week if we want, we can eat sweets daily, have several soda pops a day...

If some of our not so distant ancestors popped back into existance today, they would see the average family feasting like royalty.

of course, we are all stuffing our faces with frankenfoods, but still...

But, I really hate doing that previous comparison crap..So, ignore what I just wrote overall..that is a argument that corporate and politicial interests give people to stop complaining about corruption.

It's not an entirely artificial shortage.

All kinds of crops got hit really hard by the weather this year.

For example the wheat crops in Russia were decimated by this summer's heat surge.
Crops in India and China were also lost.

Floods, droughts, pests, you name it. This year's been especially rough.

Market speculators are taking advantage of a bad situation of course.

But the source of this disaster is our poor planning/preparation.
And our socio-economic policies which make being a factory/office worker preferable to being a farmer also leave many of us 'up a creek without a paddle'.

If you are worried, go buy some rice or something. It's cheap and you can survive on it.

I, for one, thank you for posting this. We all need to be aware that food prices are sky rocketing right now, and interestingly, the food companies are ripping people off royally.

Many, many packaging products are smaller-----there are less slices in a cheese package, for instance...there is less icecream in the carton.

I saw this on the news this morning.

More and more, we are getting less for our dollar and are being charged more for this new "less."

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Well, this is all just synthetic shortages and nonsense to overinflate the commodities prices...but I will say that food for now is actually really cheap if you compare it to 100 years ago (in regards to purchasing power).

Actually this one I don't think is fabricated. Florida just had a wicked freeze that damaged tons of crops. Texas had issues earlier in the year. It's not just in the US either. Here is a little news snippet from the Florida freeze.

Florida is the nation's largest producer of green beans and sweet corn -- the kind of corn we eat, not the kind we put in our gas tanks. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture, the state lost $273 million from the December freezes alone -- including nearly 9,000 acres of crops. The statistics are compiled only through Dec. 20, which means they don't even account for the problems caused by this week's cold.

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Here's something I was curious about. What is the yearly av. income worldwide? Did some searching and found a figure of $7,000/yr for 2007. That's a little less than 600 a month. We don't realize that most of the world lives on much much less than we could imagine. I'm in Canada and have noticed increases in almost everything we buy at the grocery store and not just a few cents but 20-30% across the board. Everything is going up except wages, this can only continue for so long. If even more shortages occur because of worldwide weather events it will get worse. Even small increases affect everyone.